Koji Wada, Singer for Digimon’s Butter-fly Dies at 42

Koji Wada’s “Butter-fly”, used as the theme song to many a Digimon anime has become an iconic part of the franchise. Starting with the song’s debut of the original Digimon Adventure way back in 1999. Since then, “Butter-fly” has featured prominently in such Digimon franchise productions as Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Tamers, Digimon Frontier, Digimon: Data Squad, Digimon Xros Wars and the Digimon Adventure tri movies. Because of his work on the Digimon franchise, Koji Wada was able to perform for fans in as faraway places as Brazil and Chile.

Unfortunately, all that came to an end last week when Koji Wada died of cancer in his upper pharynx. He had been battling with cancer continuously since 2003, which caused him to take time off in 2011 when chemotherapy and surgery could not banish the cancer for good. He was still young, just 42 years old.

To celebrate his work, his agency, Solid Vox will hold a Koji Wada Farewell Event for his fans in Tokyo later this month. In addition to his work on Digimon Adventure, he performed “Honoo no Overdrive” for Transformers: Robots in Disguise in 2000 and also released 2 albums: All of My Mind and Kazakami no Oka Kara.

For those who want to listen to the clarity and passion of his performance of Digimon Adventure’s “Butter-fly” can listen to it here: